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British Government. I said I would be glad to do so if the Canadian Government
would guarantee me a prompt hearing in London and would ask that the British
Government would render a decision as quickly as possible. On that understanding
I sailed from Quebec May 15th on the Empress of Scotland, arriving in England a
week later.

My instructions were to report to the Minister for the Colonies,
the Duke of Devonshire. The Colonial Office did not disappoint me in the promptness
with which it enabled me to state my case to the departments most concerned. I
had been in the my hotel room only an hour when I received a message from the Duke
of Devonshire setting the time for an interview with himself and for meetings
with several individuals, and with a committee of the Admiralty under the chair-
manship of the Hydrographer, Rear-Admiral F. C. Learmonth. Arrangements were later
made for meetings with a large committee consisting of members of the Colonial
Office, Foreign Office, and the Admiralty and the Air Ministry, under the chairmanship of
Sir Cecil Hurst.

Everyone in the Government was kind and at first everything seemed
to be progressing rapidly and smoothly. On the whole I have never had a pleasanter
experience than my summer of dealing with the British Government - Cabinet
Ministers, Under-secretaries, Admirals and Generals, technical experts, officers
and civil servants of every rank. Although I came there ostensibly to bring
information and recommend action I learned on the whole more than I was able to
teach. This was not because of their minds were not being open. In that respect I
have never met a group of men more admirable. But they were technical experts
in the true sense, men of scholarship and wide outlook. To few of them were the
subjects I presented new, and in many cases their range of information was wider
than mine. This was true in unexpected places and more true, of course, where it
was expected. There were manuscripts, for instance, in the Admiralty, both maps
and journals, which showed the historical case for the ownership of Wrangell